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Interesting Possibilities in Tonight’s Women’s 10,000m Final

Posted June 27th, 2008 at 6:00 PM by David Monti

Section: News & Results, Track & Field, Olympics

kara goucher 2007 world championship bronze medalist osaka The fan and media focus at tonight’s women’s 10,000m final at the U.S. Olympic Trials here is rightly on the event’s two top stars: American record holder Shalane Flanagan and last year’s IAAF World Championships bronze medalist Kara Goucher.

But, because the field has only four Olympic Games “A” standard holders, several other women are likely to be pushing the pace because it is their only hope of making it to Bejing. Unlike in previous Olympic years, U.S. athletes will not be allowed to register qualifying times after the Trials have concluded. Also, if a “B” standard holder should win the race, she won’t be able to earn a Beijing berth because the qualifying rules state that as long as there at least two “A” standard holders behind them in the field, those athletes will be nominated to the Olympic team ahead of the “B” winner. For athletes without the “A” standard going into tonight’s race, it’s do or die.

The four “A” standard holders — Flanagan, Goucher, Molly Huddle and Katie McGregor — have no incentive to push the pace, and it is unlikely that they will do much leading tonight. However, other strong athletes who need to make the standard tonight (31:45.00 or better), will have little choice but to make the race.

The key athletes falling into that group are Amy Rudolph, the 2006 U.S. 10,000m champion with a personal best of 31:18.96; Sara Slattery, the runner-up to Rudolph in 2006 with a PB of 31:57.94; Amy Begley, the former University of Arkansas star who is Goucher’s training partner and who has a 31:59.46 PB; and Elva Dryer, a two-time Olympian who dropped out of last April’s Olympic Trials Marathon and has a 31:21.92 personal best. If any of these women finish in the top-3 and run the “A” standard they can get on the team.

Also interesting to watch will be two athletes who have already qualified for the Beijing Olympics: Magdalena Lewy Boulet and Blake Russell. They finished second and third, respectively, in last April’s Olympic Trials Marathon in Boston. It is possible that either could make the podium, but but both have said that they are committed to running the marathon in Beijing.

“I won’t do both,” Russell told the Herald newspaper in Monterey County, Calif., earlier this week. “There’s no way I could recover. To do a double would be selfish. Of course, after a recent workout, the 10,000 is looking pretty good. But I’m committed to the marathon.”

Still, Goucher and Flanagan are overwhelming favorites to make the team and win the race. An unscientific poll posted at the LetsRun.com website had a whopping 72.7% of 2772 voters picking Flanagan as the winner, 24.7% with Goucher as the runner-up. That left only 2.6% of respondents picking another winner. Indeed, another winner besides the top two contenders would be a huge upset.

Tonight’s women’s 10,000m final begins at 9:20 p.m. local time (12:20 a.m. EDT and 6:20 a.m. CET tomorrow morning). Rapid results will be posted at http://www.usatf.org/events/OlympicTrials-TF/schedule.asp.

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Also tonight will be be the first round of the men’s and women’s 800m, and the heats of the men’s 5000m. In the longer race, Bernard Lagat, Adam Goucher, Matt Tegenkamp and Brent Vaughn will all run in the first heat, clearly the stronger of the two. Chris Solinsky is the top man in the second heat.